All Discussions Tagged 'History' - Atheist Nexus2018-03-19T14:50:23Zhttp://atheistnexus.org/forum/topic/listForTag?tag=History&feed=yes&xn_auth=noDevelopment of Marxism in the US dating back to WW2tag:atheistnexus.org,2017-06-19:2182797:Topic:27526412017-06-19T09:59:07.993ZLauren Ellhttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/LaurenEll
<p><span>Interesting article about the development of Marxism in the US dating back to WW2 when Marxist professors fled to the US from Germany and infiltrated the public education system. "By the early to mid-1980s a third of the Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives supported the budgetary priorities and the foreign policy advocated by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), the leading revolutionary Marxist think tank in the United States, located Washington, D.C. "…</span></p>
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<p><span>Interesting article about the development of Marxism in the US dating back to WW2 when Marxist professors fled to the US from Germany and infiltrated the public education system. "By the early to mid-1980s a third of the Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives supported the budgetary priorities and the foreign policy advocated by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), the leading revolutionary Marxist think tank in the United States, located Washington, D.C. "</span></p>
<p><a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/08/the_quiet_revolution_how_the_new_left_took_over_the_democratic_party_.html#ixzz3jrPKrARC" target="_blank">Link</a></p> unAmerican Corporatismtag:atheistnexus.org,2011-11-15:2182797:Topic:17318712011-11-15T23:05:16.880ZJim DePaulohttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/carver
<p><em> "we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." …..Thomas Jefferson</em> __________________________________________________________________<br></br>When I hear some knuckle dragging ignoramus bloviating on the virtue of corporations that government should promote and protect them as good for the nation , as the soul of capitalism, deserving of the…</p>
<p><em> "we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." …..Thomas Jefferson</em> __________________________________________________________________<br/>When I hear some knuckle dragging ignoramus bloviating on the virtue of corporations that government should promote and protect them as good for the nation , as the soul of capitalism, deserving of the rights of personhood and was decreed by god as a gate to heaven, 12 hours before he create light - I have a strong urge to relieve myself on their leg. <br/>One of the underlying issues that precipitated the American revolution was the unbridled power of corporations chartered by the English Crown, such as the East India Company. They were exploiting the colonist, stealing the country's wealth, ruining completion and dominating trade while operating with impunity outside of colonial laws. And they had, with the King's blessings, the British army to back them up.<br/>For that reason the Founders, predictably, had a deep distrust of corporations and their intent was to legally limit them in scope and influence. For over a century after the Constitution was ratified the federal and state governments granted very few corporate charters and those were strongly regulated. <br/>The original intent of granting corporate charters was to enable activities that benefited the public, such as construction of roads, bridges or canals. Allowing investors to profit as a means to finance the projects. Among the conditions of granting and maintaining corporate charters were:</p>
<p> <br/> *Corporations could engage only in activities necessary to fulfill their chartered purpose. (they had to have a specific stated purpose and goal - such as constructing a canal between two river systems)<br/> </p>
<p> *Corporations could not be investors in other corporations nor could they own any property that was not essential to fulfilling their chartered purpose.<br/> </p>
<p> *Owners and officers of the corporation were responsible for any criminal acts that were committed when they were acting for the corporation. (This was not true of Crown charters and, apparently, it's no longer true in the US today )<br/> </p>
<p> *Corporate charters could be terminated if they exceeded their authority, broke the law or caused harm to the public <br/>Corporations could not make any political contributions nor spend money to influence law-making.<br/> </p>
<p> *Corporate charters were limited to a specific life time or on the completion of their specified goals – any extensions required permission of the state or federal government. Without an extension the charter was revoked and all money remaining in the corporation was divided proportionally among the investors.</p>
<p>Today corporations are not only 'persons' they are potentially 'immortal persons' that will never worry about, or pay, inheritance tax.<br/>Those strict limitations began to erode with the 1886 SCOTUS; the same court that 3 years earlier ruled that Native Americans were aliens – a WTF decision if there every was one........but I digress. The SCOTUS ruled in the case of <em>Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad.</em> But in that decision, the court did not make a ruling on the question of "corporate personhood," However, because of misleading notes ( probably intentionally misleading) of the court reporter, J. Bancroft Davis , who was the former president of the Newburgh and New York Railway Company. He wrote as part of the case's headnote:</p>
<blockquote><p><br/><span style="color: #800000;">"The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does."</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p>The “decision” was subsequently used as precedent to hold that a corporation was a "natural person." It was then the 14th Amendment, enacted to protect rights of freed slaves, was used to grant corporations constitutional "personhood." <br/>And the slow slide into the economic decay the US is currently experiencing began. But the the slide accelerated with a vengeance some 40 years ago, capped off with the SCOTUS Citizen United decision (citizens??) <br/>Bill Moyers described the slide in a keynote speech he gave to Public Citizen , founded by Ralph Nader on their 40th anniversary. The speech is well worth listening to or reading – <a target="_blank" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-moyers/occupy-wall-street_b_1071288.html">the video and full transcript is</a></p>
<p> </p>
<blockquote><p><span style="color: #800000;">In 1971 Lewis Powell - a board member of ... tobacco giant Philip Morris and a future Justice of the United States Supreme Court - sent a confidential communication to his friends at the U. S. Chamber of Commerce. We look back on it now as a call to arms for class war waged from the top down.</span> <br/><span style="color: #800000;">..snip..</span><br/><span style="color: #800000;">Lewis Powell was shocked - shocked! - at what he called "an attack on the American free enterprise system." Not just from a few "extremists of the left," he said, but also from "perfectly respectable elements of society," including the media, politicians, and leading intellectuals. Fight back, and fight back hard, he urged his compatriots. Build a movement. Set speakers loose across the country. Take on prominent institutions of public opinion - especially the universities, the media, and the courts. Keep television programs under "constant surveillance." And above all, recognize that political power must be "assiduously (sic) cultivated; and that when necessary, it must be used aggressively and with determination" and "without embarrassment."</span></p>
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<p>American corporations embraced his nefarious plan and here we are today in the class war that we, the common citizen, are being blamed for starting. We all have to fight, and win, this war for our future and that of our children and grand children. We didn't start the class war and we are not the invaders we are the defenders in the war of their making.</p> "Freethinkers in Islamic History"tag:atheistnexus.org,2010-06-02:2182797:Topic:8448962010-06-02T08:21:36.108ZHazratNakhudahttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/HaroonMalik
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: #5e5e5e; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">Believe it or not! There were freethinkers in 10th century Islam. I have written a blog on one of them let me know what you think.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="http://pakistaniatheist.blogspot.com/2010/06/freethinkers-in-history-muhammad-ibn.html">http://pakistaniatheist.blogspot.com/2010/06/freethinkers-in-history-muhammad-ibn.html</a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 10pt"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: #5e5e5e; LINE-HEIGHT: 115%; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'">Believe it or not! There were freethinkers in 10th century Islam. I have written a blog on one of them let me know what you think.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="http://pakistaniatheist.blogspot.com/2010/06/freethinkers-in-history-muhammad-ibn.html">http://pakistaniatheist.blogspot.com/2010/06/freethinkers-in-history-muhammad-ibn.html</a></p> The Known Universe by AMNHtag:atheistnexus.org,2010-03-04:2182797:Topic:7469982010-03-04T06:04:28.570ZChristopherhttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/Christopher601
<p>I didn't know where else to post this, but I thought it was worth sharing. It's really moving to see in six short minutes just what hundreds of years of trial and error in the scientific method has illuminated.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn’t it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the…</p>
<p>I didn't know where else to post this, but I thought it was worth sharing. It's really moving to see in six short minutes just what hundreds of years of trial and error in the scientific method has illuminated.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>"After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn’t it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it?" --Richard Dawkins</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It makes you wonder how anyone could believe a Judeo-Christian god could have put all this here just for us. Please enjoy the video (from the American Museum of Natural History).</p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17jymDn0W6U">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17jymDn0W6U</a></p> Evidence For The Resurrection Of Jesustag:atheistnexus.org,2009-09-23:2182797:Topic:5149872009-09-23T08:45:03.399ZKaimanahttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/KaimanaCook
Well, I just got back from a presentation by Mike Licona, who feels that he can prove, through methods acceptable by historians, that Jesus was resurrected. He's basically saying that there are some "historical facts" that can only be explained by resurrection.<br />
<br />
These are:<br />
- Jesus was crucified when the Jewish leadership demanded it. (In his words, "An overwhelming majority, virtually 100% of scholars agree on this.")<br />
- Jesus was a traveling teacher who claimed to be the son of god.<br />
- His…
Well, I just got back from a presentation by Mike Licona, who feels that he can prove, through methods acceptable by historians, that Jesus was resurrected. He's basically saying that there are some "historical facts" that can only be explained by resurrection.<br />
<br />
These are:<br />
- Jesus was crucified when the Jewish leadership demanded it. (In his words, "An overwhelming majority, virtually 100% of scholars agree on this.")<br />
- Jesus was a traveling teacher who claimed to be the son of god.<br />
- His apostles thought that he was resurrected from the dead shortly after his crucifixion.<br />
<br />
Now, the following are from his BOOK on the subject, and not on his presentation tonight:<br />
<br />
- Paul, a persecutor of the church, has suddenly changed to faith in Jesus<br />
- The tomb of Jesus was empty.<br />
- James, skeptical of Jesus during his ministry, was suddenly changed to faith in Jesus.<br />
<br />
<br />
He says that these are facts that are accepted by the majority of scholars.<br />
He also says that when assuming that all of them are true, the only reasonable explanation is that Jesus was resurrected, and that his resurrection means that we should believe all his previous claims.<br />
<br />
<br />
Now, he was very vague about his sources tonight, I've seen him be much less vague in an older debate which can be found here:<br />
<a href="http://www.4truth.net/site/c.hiKXLbPNLrF/b.4804419/k.F6AA/Debate_Video__Mike_Licona_vs_Dan_Barker_2003.htm">Mike Licona vs Dan Barker, 2003</a><br />
This is the list he gave of "Primary sources about Jesus that support his view":<br />
Letters (Paul) - 50-65 CE<br />
NT Gospels - 50-100 CE<br />
Josephus - 90 CE<br />
Tacitus - 115 Ce<br />
Apostolic fathers - 64-150 CE<br />
Other Gospels - 150-300 CE<br />
He also mentioned Pliny and Josephus.<br />
<br />
Next, he talked about what is a responsible method for determining the validity of historical documents. The list he gave of criteria that improves validity are:<br />
Multiple reports<br />
Unsympathetic<br />
Early Reports<br />
Eyewitness Reports<br />
Embarrassing Reports<br />
<br />
<br />
For early, he mentioned the letters of paul and NT gospels.<br />
For unsympathetic he mentioned Pliny, Tacitus, and Josephus<br />
For embarrassing he said that Jesus saying "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" while dying on the cross was embarrassing for Christianity to admit to, because stories of Jewish and Christian martyrs show them not being pussies like Jesus was when being crucified. (in my words, from my notes on the presentation).<br />
Having women be the source for the empty tomb was embarrassing because at that time, the testimony of women was not considered of any value. Also, in the same vein, it was embarrassing that Jesus' closest followers, the apostles, dismissed the story that Jesus' body was gone, and that he had been resurrected from the dead.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
I'd like to see responses to what he sees as evidence for something incredibly unlikely, Jesus' resurrection, and see them refuted as carefully as possible.<br />
<br />
Also, I'd like to see a focus on only his claims that the evidence points to a resurrection. Not to whether resurrection is possible at all, or any of the many other ways this could branch. Social Experiments gone awry.tag:atheistnexus.org,2009-05-01:2182797:Topic:3060212009-05-01T08:44:32.209ZJohnskyhttp://atheistnexus.org/profile/Johnsky
Firstly, I'd like to introduce myself.<br />
<br />
I'm John.<br />
I'm a Robotics Technician in Ontario Canada.<br />
<br />
I've been an Atheist for as long as I can remember...<br />
I was lucky enough to have parents who decided to allow me to chose my religion.<br />
I chose none of the above.<br />
<br />
After having been given all the information I wanted as a child on various religions to make an informed decision, I walked away with one general understanding...<br />
... none of these religions make a lick of sense.<br />
<br />
<br />
It's my belief that most…
Firstly, I'd like to introduce myself.<br />
<br />
I'm John.<br />
I'm a Robotics Technician in Ontario Canada.<br />
<br />
I've been an Atheist for as long as I can remember...<br />
I was lucky enough to have parents who decided to allow me to chose my religion.<br />
I chose none of the above.<br />
<br />
After having been given all the information I wanted as a child on various religions to make an informed decision, I walked away with one general understanding...<br />
... none of these religions make a lick of sense.<br />
<br />
<br />
It's my belief that most religions are social policing experiments gone wrong started by fellow non-theists like ourselves who desired to extend our social awareness and morals to others through simple mythological stories and a basic social hierarchy to serve as a judicial "rat and confess" system.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, once the creators were dead and buried, the followers were left in charge to keep it running, and that's where it all falls apart.<br />
<br />
Thousands of years of war, destruction, greed, persecution, etc..<br />
... and finally we've found some calm in the storm.<br />
<br />
Now perhaps, we can get back to scientific advancement, and remind ourselves never to try that social trick again.